Flexport Launches Technology Automating Trade Tariff Refunds
Flexport has introduced a suite of new AI agents to manage customs compliance and prepare trade tariff refunds; reduce supply chain costs; and diminish barriers to global commerce. Leveraging digital and physical infrastructure, Flexport continues developing its technology platform, transitioning from a visibility system to an automation and execution engine.
The AI agent launch includes a customs auditor for compliance, automated processing for trade tariff refunds, an AI agent optimising shipping container allocation, real-time AI-powered language translation, and a data foundation for autonomous trade: Flexport Atlas.
AI Agent with “Audit Your Customs Broker” Feature
In 2025, US trade tariff policies change every one and a half weeks. The customs industry has labelled 2026 as the “Year of Audit”. Errors in customs document submissions have reached record highs, whilst government enforcement has intensified. Following a recent US Supreme Court decision rejecting IEEPA tariffs, customs document accuracy has become increasingly critical for preparing trade tariff refund claims. Flexport has launched an AI agent with the “Audit Your Customs Broker” feature that examines regulatory compliance across all previously submitted customs documents to identify errors and potential regulatory violations.
“We first tested this AI agent to review our own documents,” said Ryan Petersen, Founder and Chief Executive, Flexport. “We successfully reduced the error rate in US customs document submissions to 0.2%. For comparison, we estimate this represents a tenfold performance improvement compared to any broker globally.”
This technology is available free of charge for companies wishing to assess their broker’s performance and, in many cases, obtain government reimbursement for overpayment. “Audit Your Customs Broker” is available at tariffs.flexport.com/audit.
Automated Process for Trade Tariff Refunds
In January, Flexport launched the Tariff Refund Calculator to help companies estimate potential IEEPA refunds before the US Supreme Court decision. Following the court’s ruling rejecting IEEPA tariffs, Flexport updated this tool to prepare trade tariff refund submissions. With this update, the Tariff Refund Calculator assists customers in preparing claims. Combined with the AI Auditor, Flexport directly audits legacy documents, submits corrections, and calculates and prepares potential trade tariff refunds. The Tariff Refund Calculator is available free at tariffs.flexport.com/refunds.
“Supply Chain Optimisation” AI Agent Reduces Container Space Waste
Historically, many companies have achieved suboptimal container utilisation rates as improvements were considered complex and disproportionate to results. Flexport’s new machine learning-based algorithm automates this process and achieves average savings of approximately 10% in shipping costs. The Flexport AI agent consolidates shipments from multiple suppliers into single containers and automatically identifies shipments with identical destinations and timeframes. Unlike other logistics technology providers, Flexport not only provides recommendations but also executes them, whilst maintaining customer control.
“This technology is like Tetris, but for your shipments,” said Petersen. “Companies can choose to optimise for cost, speed, or emissions, then we execute that choice. We eliminate the need for expensive LCL (Less than Container Load) shipments and maximise FCL (Full Container Load) shipments.”
AI Translation Engine Supporting Global Commerce
For over 200 years, global commerce has used English as the primary language. Flexport’s real-time AI-powered translation engine enables users to communicate with suppliers and global partners in their respective languages. Users can compose messages in their own language, and the system immediately translates these messages into their communication partner’s language, and vice versa. At the AI agent launch, Flexport provided translation features for Simplified and Traditional Mandarin, English, Spanish, French, German, Korean, Vietnamese, Thai, and Italian—representing approximately 86% of global container exports. Additional languages will follow.
Flexport Atlas: Global Data Foundation for AI Agents and Humans to Understand World Trade
Global commerce has historically relied on email and spreadsheets, resulting in fragmented and difficult-to-analyse data. For the first time, Flexport Atlas presents an interactive map enabling individuals to observe maritime shipment movements in real-time as a living system, rather than static data. The platform provides the world’s most comprehensive maritime container shipping network data through the Model Context Protocol (MCP), enabling Flexport’s AI agents to optimise global trade flows.
With this platform, Flexport AI can optimise container routes based on actual shipping schedules, service routes, operator reliability, and contract pricing. Flexport Atlas is now available free for global business practitioners to study the maritime shipping network driving the world economy: atlas.flexport.com.